Un-helpful, Un-Crew Orientated, Arrogant Captains

[FastJet Wannabe]

I am cabin crew for a major British charter airline, based at a very small base where everyone knows everyone, and all is usually very happy and friendly.

However, I am stunned by an incredible lack of support and in my opinion a major misjudgement by a Captain on a recent flight of mine, which has left me upset, angry and worried about flying with this particular Captain in the future… I’ll explain the situation and would welcome any rational replies, as I am unsure whether to pursue the matter, and how to go about it should I decide to do so.

A very early morning check-in, and a normal and uneventful outbound flight and subsequent turnaround on one of the holidaymaker hotspot islands in the Med is the lead up to the story…

We began passenger boarding for the return sector as per normal, and ahead of schedule. Everything at this point was very normal and relaxed. A male passenger who was travelling alone asked my colleague if he could move seats. Due to a very low passenger figure of 70 out of 235 available seats she agreed, and the passenger moved. Unbeknown to anyone at this point, his mobile phone had fallen from his pocket and was left on the vacant seat.

Shortly afterwards, another of my colleagues noticed the mobile phone, and began to ask passengers seated in the adjacent areas if it was theirs. A different male passenger claimed the phone, and the matter was forgotten.

After 10 more minutes the passenger who the phoned actually belonged to realised he had lost it, and asked my colleague if it had been handed in. A brief altercation followed between the crewmember and the 2 male passengers, and the phone was returned.

This is where events turned nasty…

The passenger who had attempted to steal the phone then threatened the other passenger with his life. It also emerged that the potential thief was travelling as part of a party of 32 increasingly disruptive, rude, loud and alcohol fuelled men, all I would guess were in their 20’s – 30’s. A core of about 10 of the men were becoming increasingly abusive and threatening.

At this point the victim of the attempted theft became scared and requested police presence. The Captain was immediately informed, and flatly refused to call the police, as to do so would delay our departure. The owner of the mobile phone persisted, at which point the Captain took him onto the jet bridge, and in the earshot of a colleague of mine told him that unless he stopped making such a fuss, it was he who would be off loaded.

--------

In a separate incident, minutes later, I was walking slowly down the cabin carrying out a head count. When I got level with the rows in which the passengers were seated, they began loudly abusing me, and threatening me.

Upset and quite scared I requested to the cabin manager that they be off loaded. She agreed, as did the rest of the crew that the passengers must be off loaded, and the police called.

I must add here, that according to my company’s SEP manual these passengers must be off loaded.

The Captain was again informed, and once again flatly refused to off load any passengers, call the police, or do anything about it.

I was nearly in tears, and visibly shaken, after being threatened. I asked the Captain once again to off load the passengers, saying I was scared and didn’t want to be trapped in an aircraft with a group of 32 men who were threatening me. To which I was told that he was the Captain, and I am not to question him.

In a later report the Captain wrote that he did not consider attempted theft, and threats of violence against crewmembers and passengers to be adequate reason to off load passengers.

The flight departed on time, and the cabin crew worked the flight to the best of our ability. Every passenger on board that aircraft knew something was seriously wrong.

We filled in all of our required paper work, including the disruptive passenger reports. The Cabin Manager, myself, the rest of the crew, and the passenger who had had threats made against him requested police presence at our UK destination airport. The Captain did not call the police.

It is a requirement of the company, and stated clearly that the Captain must sign the disruptive passenger report and all other reports regarding the incident, and they be faxed immediately to our airlines head office. Therefore the cabin crew spent an hour in the crew room post flight completing the paper work. The Captain went immediately home without signing anything.

I don’t recognise the behaviour of this Captain as being the norm for any of the other Captains in the airline I work for. The Cabin Manager assured me that any other Captain at our base would have acted in line with the SEP manual, and offloaded the passengers.

However, I am shocked by this incredible lack of respect for the safety and piece of mind of the passengers and crew aboard this flight. At no point did the Captain use effective CRM, and he did not take into account the view of 6 upset and scared crewmembers. I don’t think that cabin crew go to work to be threatened and abused by our passengers.

Ironically, I went into a café at the airport with my colleagues after the incident to un-wind and talk things through. There was a large sign hanging behind the counter, which read that abusive behaviour, and threats of violence against the café staff would not be accepted, the police would be called, and the full backup of the café chain would be given to staff to press charges against the offenders. Obviously our Captain does not own that café!

[Q-Tee]

If the Captain was breaching your company policies and safety guidelines..... your Cabin Manager should have informed him that he/she was making a PA asking the customers to disembark and that the cabin crew were leaving the aircraft, would not be operating the sector until the company policies and safety guidelines were met (ie the group offloaded). Thats what I would have done!

If the reason for crew refusing to operate were genuine safety concerns and following procedures, the company would not have much recourse agaisnt the crew. Indeed the Captain would then have to explain to the company why he breached company safety rules.


Remember, the Captain is a leader of a team. He can only be effective that way if the team will as he directs. Once the Captain can not get the team to comply, he ceases to be the leader.

Management of airlines cannot have faith in leaders which cannot effectively direct crew. They would frown seriously on any Captain who cannot effectively lead ..... if the crew walk out on a Captain, his leadership skills would be called into question.

[34R]

If I had been your Cabin Manager I would have pulled the entire crew off the aircraft, with or without the captains support, and not returned until the offenders were offloaded. There is no place on an aircraft for morons like that.

Unfortunately some skippers, for reasons such as commercial pressures, duty time limitations or an inability to put themselves in someone elses shoes, may appear unwilling to support their crew. I must say the vast majority of tech crew I have operated with have been incredibly supportive and have allowed me to make the call. Unfortunately, and as is evident in your case, there are a few who don't. The captain has ultimate responsibility for the safety of the aircraft, and as far as I'm concerned that includes you. For him/her not to support you in this instance is pretty poor form and would have warrented serious words post flight.

My flight attendant days are over and I am now a pilot. If I ever gain a command my crew will ALWAYS be able to count on my support as I truely know what life can be like beyond that flight deck door.

[flapsforty]

FJW sorry to see you under these circumstances. :sad: What a rotten story!

I went through something similar a few years back and it resulted in getting beaten up by the pax involved. Like your captain, ours did zilch and went home. Happy to say that after all our reports were handed in and we had been called in by both the Chief Pilot and the Chief Cabin Crew, things got sorted out very nicely.
It took a few months but our captain was made to go on a special CRM course and he flew under supervision for 3 months afterwards to see him demonstarte what he had learned. If your company is solid, your reports will lead to something similar happening with your captain.

After what happened to me I decided that next time I seriously disagreed with a captain about such an issue, I'd do exactly as Q-tee suggests. With the captain being the unquestionable boss of the aircraft, disembarking the cabin crew is the only viable option we have.

In the 3 years I have now been purser, I have only once had to hint at my resolve to disembark all FAs for the captain to realise that we were not going to be bullied into doing as he wanted. The pax in question were off-loaded without further ado, the captain apologised for under estimating situation and all was peace and light after that.

As you are not a Purser/CabMan or whatever you call it in your company, you can obviously not decide to disembark the whole crew. But after what you have been through on this flight, I am sure you will be able tomake a powerful case for it shoudl you ever come into a similar situation. Also keep in mind that even you yourself always do have the option to leave when you feel severely threatened.
In the years I have flown I have learned to trust my instincts on disruptive pax and hairy sutuations. If you gut tells you this feels WRONG, it probably is. Either pax or the FAs will leave the AC and don't let anybody tell you different!!

You say that you are not sure if you should persue the matter? Apart from handing in written reports, what else can you do? First thing is to keep in touch with your CAbMAn of that flight I'd think. He or she will most likely be updated by the company as to what developments are taking place.
Secondly, find out if your company provides access to a mental health care professional. Being threatened this way is really scary and can leave you with something akin to post traumatic stress disorder. Not funny and not needed. I talked to the company shrink 3 times after the above episode, and after that I felt :ok: again. Even better, I now understand the mechanisms that lead to stress-under-threat and know pretty wel how to handle them when I see it in colleagues.
Good luck!

PS: Pigheaded CRM-ignorant Captains are thankfully few and far between, and usually well known to their Chief Pilot. The very same Chief Pilot who knows he's got a baddy in the ranks but whose hands are tied by the fact the he needs written complaints before he can do anything!

[maddog62]

FJW,

how about the FO? Did he have anything to say or have you talked to him afterwards?

Rgds

[Human Factor]

Try this. It's anonymous and will be investigated.

CHIRP (http://www.chirp-admin.co.uk/chirp-main/default.htm)

[willfly380]

whats wrong with the guy[assuming its a guy].if my crew is not happy about any pax,i dont leave the gate till they are satisfied with the conduct/appearance of the pax. and no one can pressurize me in taking the pax without the nod from my crew.complaints dont work specially since nothing happened [thank god for that]. he will be called up and he will say but larry 30 pax into 1oo dollars is alot of money which i made for the company.and he will get off looking like the good guy. you see all airlines secretly just want to make money[as if thats a secret].
my advise is to bury it and think your actions through for the next time something similar happens.cheers and safe flying

[Doors to Automatic]

Your captain sounds like an absolute prat. Obviously not a team player in any sense of the word. It worries me that there are people responsible for 200+ lives out there who behave in this way.

[Engineer]

The question that begged to be asked is after the flight departed on time with all pax on board was there any hint of unlawful behaviour towards the cabin crew during the flight or disembarkation.

If not then maybe the Captain exercised the correct judgement

[pontius's pa]

fastjet wannabe

What a horrible experience.

With hindsight, (of course), was it not possible to get the name(s) of the passenger(s) who threatened you from the manifest and make a private complaint to the police?

I am surprised that your manager did not suggest it. There is of course the risk that the company would penalise you for fear of losing such "valuable" passengers.

Try and get a job with a company that values its employees more.

And make friends with a pharmacist who can recommend a slow acting, powerful and preferably tasteless emetic, that you can add to the last drink of such passengers before landing, served with your most stunning smile.

Just kidding.

[fatboy slim]

This is exactly what CHIRP is there for, if you feel you do not want to persue it through the company. I'm sorry that you were put in this situation by this fool of a man.

[Heathrow09L]

I totally agree with you, at the end of the day its the Cabin Crew who have to put up with pax's the flight deck can just lock the doors.

There should be ZERO tolorence for abusive passengers, if this had happened in Saudi Arabia or Singapore, they would have got a good lashing, and would think twice about doing something like that again!

[Trislander]

FJW,

I'm so sorry to hear about what you had to go through.

I'm cabin crew too and always worry about something like this happening when we have some rowdy groups on our flights esp. on a friday night Prague flight.

But I know that whatever happens I hope we can rely on the guys up front to help us out by means of diverting and/or calling the police to deal with the situation upon arrival. To think that your flightdeck are there for you in a situation like that and to find that they in fact have little/no interest in the well-being of their passengers but most importantly their colleagues is downright out of order and quite frankly scary.

When we get these types of pax on board I always think 'well at least the flightdeck are there to support us should things get out of hand'. It just shows you that this just isn't the case, OK not 95% of the time but with a select few older and probably ex-military pilots shall I say, CRM is regarded as nonsense. It was a Captain with this attitude who was in command during the Kegworth disaster.

Thankfully as someone else said these pilots are beginning to retire and are few and far between.

Definately go to Chirp if no one else, I know someone on the Chirp board and you will find them extremely helpful. It is all done in confidence too.

Take care, I hope this gets sorted out for yours and your pax's sake.

Tri;)

[airsmiles]

Speaking as a frequent flyer from the pax point of view, I've seen a few similar but thankfully not as serious incidents. I'm amazed at the number of spineless pax who seem to put up with anything rather than make a fuss. Its about time the silent (pax) majority put these thugs in their place. I take it no other passengers offered any support to the cabin crew in this incident.

I'm absolutely appalled at the captains behaviour and I must say it doesn't give me much confidence in his ability to fly me safely to my destination. He sounds like the 'old school' type who insists he knows everything and his authority is supreme, then proceeds to fly you into the nearest mountain because he's too pig-headed to take advice from the right-hand seat.

I can only offer my commiserations. Rest assured some passengers think you do a great job.

airsmiles

[flystarboy]

Fastjet my heart goes out to you as I too have had the "pleasure" of working with a skipper who thinks that he is always right and beyond reproach.

If your company SOP`s state that the level of behaviour such as this from your "guest" is unacceptable and warrants offloading then the Captain is in breach of Co procedures and should face the relevant consequences. i.e. disciplinary investigation/proceedings.

Lets face it if you did something against Co policy/procedure you`d be in the office quicker than Posh spice can go shopping!!!!

You would have been within your rights if you had "an honest held belief" that yours, your crew and passengers safety were in danger from these "guests" to insist on police presence.

Most airlines within the UK have a confidential inhouse reporting system as well as CHIRP.
If all your co workers are unanimous in feeling that the Capt did not act according to Co standards then I would consider contacting your Flight Ops director or the Flight crew Manager.

It may only be an isolated case but then it could be a common occurence for him do ya want to rely on him in an emergency if he thinks "his way " is Right???

[Sick Squid]

I know FJW, so therefore am very interested in his reactions to this issue, and the implications implied......

It's easy for me to say that as a Captain, there is no way this situation would EVER have got close to what is related here........

However, as a second officer..... I sat next to someone who for 8 hours refused to talk to me, and refused to let me do a single thing on the flight, be it turn the heading knob, or a simple radio call. I also sat next to someone similar who only allowed me to say anything when I knew the answer to a particular navigation problem... and then only as a last resort. Then.. it resorted to normal with me not touching or doing anything for the rest of the flight....

It's a human issue. You have to listen to the crew.... sometimes, you might make a different decision than the one they want, but if you do then you should be able to back it up by mutually acceptable arguments... the time/delay/inconvenience argument does not wash in the scenario outlined here.

The most important thing is not to demonise Captains, or First Officers, or Senior Crew members en masse merely on the debate of the inappropriate response of one human being, but rather to learn, and move one.

[flystarboy]

Sick Squid would appear that the captain was not willing (or able?) to hear what was being said by his "Team"


BMI incident enroute to to BFS springs to mind

[EasyBaby]

I horrified that in this day and age, after all the incidents that have shown to have been directly caused by poor crm, and indirectly, that there are people within the aviation industry that still have this "Russian Roulette" attitude, towards their crew and responsibilites.

Soon afer joining my company we had a similar incident on board one of my flights. After the airport being besieged with a freak snow storm, we had to wait for de-icing. When a group of pax became surprisingly vocal, and frankly threating to the cabin crew (i was witnessing this occurring from the rear galley of a 737) i interphoned the flight deck to do something. Well he didn't and even with the senior pleading through the door for the captain to get the pax offloaded and to come out and help (this capt was very big!!) he refused, and refused to call for the ramp agents to come back to ofload the pax (on a remote stand). Thankfully Easyjet been a very open company, and senority doesn't get in the way when it comes to saftey or following company policies, the senior took out her mobile phone and threatend to call HQ. At this point the capt came out saw the situation and then got the pax off loaded.
When we got back to base, the senior refused to let the capt go home before she took him to a side room and gave him what for, after filling a report its nice to see the capt is walking about with less of an attitude.

I would hate to think what would have happend if the senior didn't have the balls to confront the capt as i truly believe that these pax would have full on assulted the us (crew) either there on the ground or worse in the air.

NEVER take the risk when it comes to agro pax, we all know that flying has funny effects on peoples sanity. And you should never think that just because your a "junior" that you don't have a say in matters if you think saftey (personal/general) is being comprimised, could you live with a guilt that perhaps your lack of speaking up caused a serious incident?

well theres my "few" words of wisdom!!!!

Take care out there and lets all keep safe :ok:

[Anti-ice]

I'm sorry to hear of your incident too - what a horrible day for you all.

It looks like you have pretty much 100% support on here for his indefensible actions.
Thank god the situation didn't turn any uglier for you with these thugs.:ugh:

You do get the odd captain who doesn't live in the real world , and these are the type that live in a permanent state of denial.

Obviously , this particular l*ser woudl rather sacrifice your personal safety and wellbeing for the sake of him getting a pat on the back for getting the aircraft back on time :rolleyes:
The fact that he conveniently disappeared after the flight without filing a report and checking up on you guys backs up this apathetic stance.
I would approach your line manager too with the backup of your crew.

Use the CHIRP system, it will definitely make you feel better, as he is accountable and will have to defend his (indefensible) actions.

Supposing that these guys had turned on you and your crew causing the apalling types of injuries we have seen before us????

I had a similar 'denial' captain once onboard a flight in to Italy.
The turbulence for the last 20 mins was horrendous - the flight crew had been informed it would be really bad - another airline captain told us, but he didnt bother to inform the cabin.
I received 2 head injuries, the rest of the crew were injured and the plane felt like it was about to be ripped apart .
We had to crawl to our seats with pax holding us to the floor.
People were screaming and crying and the cabin was a mess.

The captain didn't say one word to the passengers , and when we got on the tarmac for our nightstop he behaved as if nothing had happened. - a new girl had bruising on her neck from her injuries.
I absolutely tore a strip off him, i've never shouted so loud in my life.
He was trying to brush it under the carpet without even so much as an apology or explanation of his actions.
He didn't give a damn about our physical wellbeing , let alone the terror we had just been put through.
Disgusting.

[MD11Flyer]

Captains like that out to be hung by their nipples over the Sears Tower

[yellow rocket]

In this part of the world we have an ICAN (Australia) or an OCR (New Zealand). I'm sure you have a similar safety/quality report documentation process.

Write one.

I have before.

[411A]

Seems to me that the Captain concerned should show a bit more respect to the crew under his command.

It takes two (and many times more) to tango.

[dicksynormous]

MD11 flyer,

Even tho i havent behaved like that chap any chance you could arrange something along those lines for me sometime. :ooh:

[whatunion]

On behalf of all captains can I apologise to FJWanabee for the way she/he was treated by this particular captain. There are a small minority of people, and this includes a few cabin crew as well, that shoulnt take part in any activity were they come into contact with other human beings.

It dosnt matter how much CRM training an individual has had, you cant change peoples personalities, its something we all have to allow for, especially in line flying.

A friend of mine told me an interesting story. On joining a new squadron he was told that his first task should be to find the "********", there's always one. If you cant find one you know its you!!!!

Its wrong to expect the captain to come out of the cockpit to sort out a possible violent situation as a smack in the gob dosnt leave one in the best condition to operate the aircraft! Our co policy forbids it.

However airline check in staff and crew are not "Bouncers" and should never be exposed to this sort of behaviour. Check in staff let us down on many occasions by letting on passengers who are unruly or even drunk. I expect to be told about this but rarely are. cabin crew are sometimes slow to actually report awkard or unruly passengers to the captain. I expect to be told about this in the same way i discuss bad weather with the cabin crew.

Last year I overheard the load controller telling the number one that we had some noisy loud young guys on a stag night on board. I went down(yes against co policy) and told them if the cabin crew had any problem with them on the ground I would have them taken off and arrested and that if they caused any problem in the air i would arrange for police to arrest them on their arrival. Cabin crew later reported that they were reluctant to even speak from that point on.

The commander has a duty to safeguard the crew and the passengers from the moment they step on the aircraft. I treat that duty very seriously and I do not care how long the flight is delayed i will not fly with any person (crew or passnger) who may be disruptive in anyway. I also want any passenger who uses any abusive language to be removed from the aircraft.

Passengers need to be sent a very strong message that they are only onboard at the invitation of the crew and that the first time they step out of line, firm action will be taken and this is what the current law demands.

This particular captain has not only let down the crew but the airline industry in general. I believe that individuals such as these and they are in every airline(weak, arrogant, autocratic ,misguided characters) should be stripped of their rank, because they are not worthy of the title commander.

In this particular incident and i know its difficult, I would have expected the Number 1 to refuse to operate the service until the matter was resolved to his/her satisfaction. You may have caused a few ripples within your company but the CAA would have backed you.

If you had been injured during the flight the captain would have been guilty of negligence as you had brought the matter to his attention. This must always be a consideration when given information by the cabin crew. They are legally qualified to tell you about whats going on behind the flight deck door, to not act on this information is not only insulting and arrogant but very foolish.

To all of you cabin crew out there who do a great job, I thank you!

[Tony Flynn]

Whatunion, outstanding post.

[starbag]

I'm shocked (but unfortunately not surprised) that there are still flight crew out there acting like that after all the high profile cases of air rage in the media. But can I just stand up for the overwhelming majority who are absolute stars. Two incidents come to mind. Six hour on the ground with pax on board after diverting due to weather. All but one pax were good humoured. This one chap decided he had enough. Our six foot something built like a brick ****house captain heard the commotion, came out and basically told him where to go, to much smirking from the other pax - not a peep out of him for the remainder of the delay.

Secondly, I allowed a drunk pax who seemed good humoured at boarding to fly. After being refused alcohol, he started kicking off and making some quite personal comments. The flight crew were fab - sympathetic, demanding that I come and sit in the flight deck to calm down, organising police to meet the aircraft, completing most of the ASR, etc. After engine shut down, the captain was out of the flightdeck, speaking to the police, talking to other passengers, and made us a stong cup of tea. On the return again much sympathy and report writing to ensure the idiot never flew with us again.

To all the flight crew reading this, a sympathetic ear, a cup of tea, and a call to the police can make the world of difference to you crew. (But then again, most of you know that already!!)

[phat boy]

Yes absolutely appalling show... how did you cope?

WHATUNION please don't apologise on behalf of me or practically all the captains I happen to know UNLESS you can elicit an apology from ALL CSDs, pursers, cabin-managers, etc ON BEHALF OF the pig-headed monster beer-hag ones that I've seen inflicted upon crews and passengers from time to time over nearly 20 years of flying. And there have been a few.

The sort who use ridicule and scorn to attempt to cow passengers and pilots, alike. I would've off-loaded those passengers just like I've offloaded a couple of cabin-crew that pushed it too far but thankfully it is rare in both cases.

How many pilots behave like this guy did? One captain makes an ass of himself and the thread draws whinges and complaints like flies. Wow... Anyway we've heard one side of a story here, does anyone seriously think there isn't another side to it? Sorry to ruin your fun.....

Try to remember when pilots have stuck up for you and even gone out of their way to be ...believe it or not... NICE. Instead of balling your eyes out about one jerk.

Cabin crew always cease to amaze me. You love to hate pilots and in your own arrogance, forget pilots would perform the same function the same way whether you're there or not.

Just because I'm (happily) married to a cabin crew doesn't mean I'm happy to read the above sort of pathetic crap.

[whatunion]

WHATUNION please don't apologise on behalf of me or practically all the captains I happen to know UNLESS you can elicit an apology from ALL CSDs, pursers, cabin-managers, etc ON BEHALF OF the pig-headed monster beer-hag ones that I've seen inflicted upon crews and passengers from time to time over nearly 20 years of flying. And there have been a few.

OK I wont apologise on behalf of you or practically all the captains you happen to know.


Can i apolgise for the way you have expressed your views and changed the discussion to air views unrelated to the original post. Can I also wish you the best of luck with the charm school!

[Farty Flaps]

Phat Boy ,
I'm with you.

There is an underlying resentment or bitchyness toward flight deck from the cabin. eg. refering to me by my job title not my name, "dont do flight deck darling" "all you do is read the paper"etc ad nauseum. Also influencing new hires that we are a bunch of t0ssers. I am not A flight deck, i have a name and fly for a living...CRM is two way.

Most of the time Human factors disguise it, ie we get on , but occasionnally it surfaces, could there be more of a history that may have contributed to this event, after all ,all incidents are not random occurances, but the end result of a chain of events. I have had to bite my tongue and be proffessional when what i really wanted to do was throttle certain unnofficial policy makers in the cabin(crm stretched to breaking point), maybe he had just had enuf. not an excuse to be unproffessional but just another slant on it.

[flapsforty]

phat boy & Farty Flaps to put a numerical perspective on your accusations and to see if you were actually correct, I have done a quick count on the various posts on this thread. Of course I do not know all the posters here, but most of them are regular users of this forum and as such recognisable as Cabin Crew.
Posts made by CC on this thread: 11
Posts made by CC on this thread emphasising the fact that most pilots WOULD be supportive of their CC: 8

Not quite what the pair of you seem to be insinuating is it now?

While pilots are always welcome to join our discussions on the Cabin Crew forum, it would be rude of us to go to pilot specific forums and post all kinds of unpleasantness about the pilot community.
The same applies to yourselves (assuming you are pilots)when visiting here.
By all means complain, whinge even :) about specific instances you have experienced, but please do not come in here to spout offensive generalisations about cabin crew's presumed attitudes.

And I'd like to take this occasion to apologise ;) on behalf of ALL CSDs, pursers, cabin-managers & the pig-headed monster beer-hags who you have ever had the misfortune of having to work with. They exist, and we are not proud of them.

Not on this thread and not on this forum do we make out that all pilots are tossers. We work with pilots every working day of our lives, and by and large we enjoy the experience.
The times when it is less than enjoyable, we have in this forum a place to seek advice and consolation from our fellows, colleagues amd friends.

We hash things out, we take each other's advice or not as the case may be, dry the tears and get on with the job feeling better because we have shared our worries with people who know where we're coming from.

[whatunion]

Nice one flaps forty

whatunion says, wise man only tests depth of river with one leg!

[KTPops]

Well said, flapsforty.

How ridiculous to complain about so-called generalisation of all pilots and then come on to a CC forum and tar us all with the same brush!

[CaptainFillosan]

A few diverse opinions and some that are OTT but in general supporting FJW.

Well here is my opinion. I think you were let down badly by your Captain. His attitude is reprehensible and he should have supported you when you felt threatened. The Cabin Manager appears to be very weak and should have given consideration to taking the cabin crew off the aircraft. Did he/she?

The Captain had a duty to consider your safety and he ignored it! That is a serious error on his part.

Did he make a report and the flight's end, or later? If he did not he almost cdertainly went against SOP's and this needs bring to bought to the attention of your particular boss. Ask if a report WAS made. If it wasn't my advice would be to make one and follow it through. I would certainly try to get your colleagues to go along with too.

IF.........you do nothing you will regret it if there is another incident.

[Flying Lawyer]

Passengers need to be sent a very strong message that they are only onboard at the invitation of the crew and that the first time they step out of line, firm action will be taken and this is what the current law demands. Speaking as a mere passenger, I sometimes get the impression that too many CC (although thankfully a minority) adopt that approach already. :rolleyes:
Curious interpretation of the law.

(No. I'm not defending yobbish behaviour by passengers and support severe punishment for threatening or violent behaviour.)

[Omark44]

Sorry cannot go with your theory. CC are not qualified or trained to make a prognosis as to the future state of a passenger who is already showing symptoms of intoxication or being abusive.
What CC do know is that intoxication increases with altitude due to there being less available oxygen at altitude, as well as knowing that whilst they are still on the ground and have the doors open they have a ready solution available to the problem. The Captain is not qualified or trained to assess intoxicated passengers and assume they will quieten down once airborne and in this case seems to have paid them scant attention.
I think this was a bad judgement call as all the captain's efforts to get away on time and go home could have come to nought if a passenger had become violent and a non-scheduled landing enroute had been required.

Additionally I would like to know why the captain didn't talk to his crew when back at base either in the crew room or, better still, over a beer.

[JonBoy80]

Passengers should be screened prior to boarding an aircraft. They are more concerned of someone carrying a plastic folk on board as opposed to 10 rude-intoxicated passengers. They should just refuse them entry till they sober up and if they dont, split them apart in the aircraft.. If they act like kids, treat them like kids.. Very simple. I will never let a passenger get away with threatning violence upon my work colleague. That shows lack of team work if your captain doesnt do anything about it.


Ladies and gents, be tough but professional. Im sure you know all know how to play the game.

[cheeryguy]

I have read through this debate with interest, and i am left wondering about a couple of things.

1. Do all the postees work for UK based carriers?
2. Do all UK based airlines not have to follow the same rules and regs set out in the general module for SEP in conjuntion with JAR OPS?

The reason I ask is that with company I work for (UK based) it states clearly in our SEP rules and regs that the CSD/SCCM has the ultimate say over pax offloads until door closure/pushback. If he she wishes to offload a pax for any valid reason the Captain/Dispatcher (or anyone for that matter) cannot overrule their decision. I have had to do this more than once and on every occaison I have found the Captain to be more than supportive.

Sounds to me like the Captain mentioned in the initial post needs to think more about the overall safety of his aircraft and less about OTD' s. Nothing can be taken for granted when in comes to safety, just ask any crew member that has been involved in an incident involving violence onboard.

Happy flying all.

[Dogs_ears_up]

I'm uncomfortable with this thread, not just because of the very serious accusations made, but also because of some of the necessary information that is missing. After a little digging, I'm reasonably sure that I know the company and base involved here, and have some knowledge of the procedures involved.

It is unclear how the rest of the Cabin Crew dealt with the incidents described, in particular, the Cabin Manager. In these circumstances, I would expect the Cabin Manager to take up a central role in liaising with the Flight Crew and relaying the concerns of the Cabin Crew. The CM would be responsible for ensuring that the Captain fully understands the seriousness of the situation, and also would assist the Captain in reaching a solution. In this incident, that communication process seems to have either broken down, or become corrupted in some way. One possible reason for this would be that the CM and/or other Cabin Crew members did not assess the level of threat as being as significant as that perceived by FJW. If the other crew did perceive the same level of threat to the safe operation of the flight, then there are important questions to be asked about how this was not communicated adequately to the Flight Crew. There is a specific phrase that Cabin Crew are trained to use with Flight Crew, intended for use in precisely this kind of situation: The intention of the phrase is to alert the Captain to the fact that the Cabin Manager is making a serious, formal point, and is designed to snap the attention of all involved to the seriousness of the matter: I would be interested to know whether this phrase was in fact used?

The paperwork trail is also slightly confusing. If the Captain failed to sign the DPR, was this fact mentioned in the body text of the DPR itself? Have Security or Safety responded to the Crew about the Disruptive Passenger Report, or has their been any response to the Flight Report? What have been the responses of both the Cabin Crew Base Manager and the Pilot Regional Manager? Have any Crew members actually filed with CHIRP yet? What I'm getting at here is that there are a variety of internal managers and departments that will automatically become involved once a written report has been filed about an incident - both because they are interested and because they have no choice. Given that I would expect the Crew to be irate about the days events, I would have thought that the feedback response would be fairly rapid.

At a small base, where everybody knows everybody else, this kind of incident will tend to be discussed amongst all the Crew, and has the potential to become divisive and disrupt smooth operations. Because of this, and in order to prevent the same thing happening again in the future, all available channels for dealing with the incident should surely be used. It could be said that there is almost an obligation on the crew to do so. Pprune is many useful things, but one thing it is not is a substitute for CHIRP or official procedures. I don't mean to belittle what was clearly a very unpleasant situation for a crew member trying their best to cope, with what was clearly, little or no help from those who should know better. However I do think that more should be done than to complain on PPrune, and that we should all be careful with this as there may be aspects of the situation that FJW is not fully aware of.

[Farty Flaps]

Flaps forty,

My generalisations are based on 20 yrs and 12000 hrs of personnal experience.Specific incidents would be innapropiate, and pointless. Bitchiness is a way of life in this industry and if you dont think so then you are either nieve or hiding your head in the sand , but certainly not qualified to warn me about my opinion. ( ps it didnt sound arrogant until i typed it . oops there we go crm again when i didnt really need it , but didnt want anyone blubbing)

Please dont confuse moderating a forum with trying to stifle an opinion, particularly if its painful.

cabin is always a good forum, dont ruin it by assuming the MO of the flight deck forums which is normaly agree ,be one of us or be slagged.

by the way its never personnal just business.
dont do cabin crew darling, only marry them.


:ok:

[phat boy]

farty flaps that's about the size of it. Well put-into-words what I was trying to say, in both your posts.

Don't do flightdeck, Darling... yep that sums it up.

PS cabin crew forum... yes... but last time I checked at least one of those 'P's in PPRUNE stood for "Pilots".

Oops I did it again, when will I learn to behave with the proper humility my lowly status as pilot demands? Maybe when I start giving a rat's what the old boilers think of my wings.

[flyblue]

Gentlemen,
what exactly are you talking about? Apart of hijacking the thread I mean. You killed a constructive discussion between crew members about what goes wrong when working together, only to spout generalisation about CC. If you want to indulge in such sport, please open your own thread and have fun nodding at eachother and agreeing on how B-A-D Cabin Crew are.

I think we could use the time here in a more profitable way to analyze what causes that kind of incidents, what to do to try to avoid it and what to do next time a similar situation arises. Both ways (CC to F/D and F/D to CC), of course. Trying to keep an open mind as usual.

Please let's keep your posts coming on this subject people, have not read such an interesting thread in a long time. :ok:

[flybywire]

Well said Flapsforty.
What happened to FJW was appalling, that captain wasn't showing good CRM and wasn't probably paying too much attention to the company's procedures-in my company we have a ZERO tolerance policy for such abusive behaviour. I have to say that on some occasions the crews have been through some pretty bad times with disruptive passengers during the flight and have managed to keep the situation under control until landing, but whenever such situation occurred on the ground pax have been offloaded straight away.

This is not a cabin crew versus flight deck thread. On the opposite many people said that the majority of captains would have backed up their crew.
That individual might not be suited for such job. Captains have the responsibility of the safety of their passengers and their whole crew. Thank God these individuals are not so common!

I once met a captain who was so good at CRM, so crew-oriented, so caring of his colleagues that everybody in the company loves him and I am thinking of marrying him :)

take care and happy flying....and have a look at CHIRP...it's worth writing to them!!! Let the CAA see what is happening...such idiots board our planes and we have to undergo so many checks to get a bloody BAA pass?????:uhoh:

Cheers

FBW:)

PS cabin crew forum... yes... but last time I checked at least one of those \'P\'s in PPRUNE stood for "Pilots".
A-ha!! this explains it all.

[Jeff Stryker]

can we hear from fastjetwannabe- what was the outcome? was it reported?
did you do any follow up or take any action?
did you report it to your managers?